A lot of people would argue that bacon is what makes everything better. And while I do tip my top hat to bacon for being so darned tasty, I must also respectfully disagree. I believe it is beer that makes everything better.
For example, let’s take a look at the iconic lager. On its face, the classic style is a clean, fermented thirst quencher perfect for celebrating and sometimes commiserating each and every football Sunday. But do you know how much planning, precise timing and patience goes into creating the seemingly simple, crowd-pleasing brew? So much.
In fact, a satisfying lager is kind of like inbound marketing in that respect. (You see what I did there?) A thoughtfully executed inbound strategy will come across as an effortless extension of a brand across multiple channels. And just like a lager, a successful inbound marketing strategy requires planning, timing and patience.
Planning
Much like a brewmaster wouldn’t walk up to their mash tun and start throwing random stuff in willy nilly – fingers crossed, just hoping for the best – a good marketer knows you can’t wake up one morning and say, “Hey! I think I will Internet today!”
The most effective way to kick-off your marketing efforts is to take the time to plan your activities around your goals ahead of time. So before you share any link, blog post or premium content offer, here are a few of the things you need to do first:
- Target who you are trying to reach
- Determine what your audience is looking for
- Create mind-blowing content for your audience
Timing
Once you have your inbound marketing ingredients – the right audience paired with the right content – all set and ready to go, the next step is to plot out the timing for your content promotion. This is because timing is everything. From well-paced nurturing email workflows to long-term social media promotion of evergreen content, your goal will be to capture the attention of your desired persona (or personas) at their zero moment of truth and help them through their buyer’s journey with content, going far beyond the lifespan of a single tweet or email newsletter.
So when it comes to the amplification and engagement rates of your content, it’s not only about knowing what to say and who to say it to, but also when to say it and how often.
Patience
What’s funny about the lager is that, even though it seems less complex than a stout or porter, it actually takes longer to ferment and age into the crisp beer with sparkling clarity we have all come to love. That liquid beauty doesn’t just appear overnight. And guess what? The same goes for the results of inbound marketing.
A comprehensive marketing strategy that shows measurable results does so over time, and not because of a single keyword change in your SEO or a viral tweet that happens to give you a momentary bump in traffic. And if you’re looking just at social media promotion, data shows the more time you invest in social media, the more positive returns you’ll see in your sales. In short, content promotion and lead nurturing requires commitment.
Final Thought
Beer and inbound marketing are so easily comparable because both can be awesome (and delicious, in the case of the former) with a bit of forethought. But the creation of each requires time and energy. So while you may be tempted to take a short cut with your marketing, remember the effort you put into inbound will be rewarded with increased traffic and a sustainable pipeline of better, more qualified leads in the long run.
